


almost (sweet music)

by vowelinthug



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Timelines, M/M, interesting haircuts, poor time management
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 07:19:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18361274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vowelinthug/pseuds/vowelinthug
Summary: 5 kisses in 5 different timelines





	almost (sweet music)

**Author's Note:**

> three weeks ago i was sick and decided to stop fucking around and see if the magicians was worth the hype. now here i am.

* * *

 

_Timeline 2_

 

The knock on his door is a firm, confident two tap — quick, sharp, but demanding to be answered. Quentin is halfway to the door when the person knocks again. This time, it’s shave-and-a-haircut, and it might be Quentin’s overactive imagination, but it sounds a little harried now. It makes him slow down, approaching now with caution. It’s late, and it’s not like he has any friends in Brooklyn, but every so often he gets a delivery guy coming to the wrong place, because most of the apartment numbers in the building have disappeared over the years.

His paranoia increases when the knocking continues at a weird rhythm. Quentin only figures out it’s to beat of Adele’s “Hello” when the person knocking starts singing along.

He cracks open the door before they can start the chorus. He leaves the chain on, though. He’s not _stupid_. “What?”

“Oh, good, you’re home. I would have hated to break into a place like this.”

Quentin blinks. “What?”

The man is tall, handsome in a cat-like kind of way. His hair is almost as long as Quentin’s, but wavy, hanging oddly around his face like it was used to being tied up or slicked back. For all the coolness of his words, he looks a little...messy. Something pricks at the back of Quentin’s mind, looking at the smile that doesn’t really reach the guy’s eyes. Something uncomfortable, something pushy.

“Well, don’t get me wrong, Q, I’m not above a little B and E,” says the guy, looking over his shoulder. “But if I’m going to be bothered with burglary, I’d prefer, say, an expensive wine cellar or an art museum after hours, or the locked bedroom of a wealthy dowager while she’s throwing her annual charity gala. That’s _sexy_ , y’know? Classy. Breaking into a crack den just really isn’t my speed.”

“Um,” says Quentin, who hasn’t shut the door, or called the cops. “This isn’t a—”

“Okay, this is getting tedious.” The guy puts his hand on the door and casually pushes, and the door opens easily, smoothly.

Quentin stumbles back, but the guy just breezes by him into the living room. The chain on Quentin’s door isn’t broken. There just isn’t a chain anymore.

“What the fuck?” he asks the door.

“It was nice of Dean Fogg to leave some protective wards on you,” says the guy, surveying Quentin’s small living room the way a cop might take in a bloodied corpse at a crime scene. “I don’t get why he had to put you in squalor. Although I suppose you did blind him. Maybe he couldn’t tell.”

“Do I _know_ you?” Quentin has had a long day at the end of a long run of long days. He’s only been working at the bookstore for a month, which means he’s still stuck unpacking boxes in the basement and organizing them for the other people to shelve. He knows it’s supposed to be grunt work, that he’s supposed to be working on getting out of the basement onto the floor. But for as repetitive and as gruelling as it is on his body, at least it means he doesn’t have to talk to many people.

Quentin’s not a fan of talking to other people.

Which makes the person standing in his living room irritating as well as potentially life-threatening.

The guy stops glaring at his slouching couch and stained linoleum floors and looks up at him. Then the guy smiles at him, and it’s a real smile this time. “Hell,” he says, coming closer. “I _did_ miss you, Q.”

“Who _are_ you?”

“I’m Eliot,” he says. “We met a couple months ago.”

The vague panic and warm curiosity that had been warring inside Quentin disappears as quickly as if a candle had been snuffed out. Now he’s filled with misery, as cold as stone. “You were at the hospital?”

Eliot frowns. “No? They said you were in a _hospital?_ ”

“I _was_ in a hospital.” Quentin backs away, goes over to his kitchen, which is really just the back wall of his living room, except there’s a fridge and a sink. Thinking about the hospital, what he _can_ think of it, always makes him need to pace, to move, like a tiger locked in a cage. He pours himself some water from the tap. “They called it a fugue state. I don’t really remember anything before… the last month or so, I guess, after I tried to…. So. If we met there, I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.”

“We didn’t meet at a hospital,” Eliot insists, looking a little pissed. “We met at school. We were lovers.”

Quentin chokes on his water.

“It was only a few times, but it was...earth-shattering.” Eliot gets closer again, and Quentin has nowhere to move. “It was the best I’ve ever had. You always held me afterwards.”

“Um.”

Eliot opens his fridge. His small gasp of horror is easily audible in the quiet apartment. “Don’t you have _any_ alcohol?”

“It doesn’t…” Quentin doesn’t know if he should tell a man who is clearly in love with him and has been stalking him since undergrad so that he can now finally murder him — that he doesn’t remember him at all. “...mix well with my medication.”

Eliot slams the door to the fridge with distaste. Then he must see _something_ on Quentin’s face because he sighs. “Oh my god, Quentin, I was _joking._ Trust me, if we had ever fucked, even with all of Fogg’s complex memory-wiping spells, you would have remembered _all_ of it.”

There’s a lot there Quentin doesn’t have the capacity to understand, mentally or emotionally. His back hurts. His feet hurt. His dinner of microwaved leftovers had been interrupted by a knock on his door, and while the likelihood of him surviving to get to eat it seems to be dwindling, if he has to microwave it a second time it’ll just be inedible.

There’s only one word that is sticking to the inside of Quentin’s brain, trapped and writhing like a caught fly. “Spells?”

“Ugh, why did I think this would be the easier job when I signed up for it? I should have just seduced you like I promised.” Eliot leans against the back of his couch, arms folded. “Quentin. Magic is real. You can — sort of do it. You went to a school upstate to learn how to do it better, with me, and also your friend Julia, but then you accidentally summoned an evil, murderous Beast from another universe, like a total freshman, so they wiped your memory and expelled you.”

He hears what Eliot is saying, but every syllable slips through Quentin’s mind like grains of sand passing through the thinnest part of an hourglass. He has to take every word one at a time. “Are you sure we didn’t meet in the hospital?”

Eliot sighs dramatically. He holds up his hand, and he looks like he’s just about to start arguing, but then, with a twist of his wrist, a globe of fire appears, hovering in his palm.

Quentin stares at it quietly. He notices it’s rotating slightly, like a world set alight.

“Quentin,” Eliot says again. He starts tossing the ball of fire back and forth between his hands like it’s a stress ball. “Magic is real. You can sort of do it. You went to a school upstate to learn how to do it, with me and your friend Julia, but then you accidentally summoned an evil, murderous Beast from another universe, like a _total_ fucking freshman, so they wiped your memory and expelled you.”

Quentin watches the ball of fire dance between Eliot’s hands. Distantly, he’s a little worried, because that couch Eliot is still leaning against is made of cheap polyester, and is definitely flammable. “Oh,” he says faintly. Expelled from his dream school of magic. That’s just typical of his luck. “Okay.”

Then he adds, “You know Julia?” He hadn’t heard from her since before he went into the hospital. He doesn’t even know if she knew about that, about what he did. How disappointed she’d be when she found out.

Eliot rolls his eyes, snuffing out the fire. “Everyone knows Julia. She’s trying to save the world or something. I don’t know, I’m only half-present for some of these conversations. Actually, everything’s sort of incredibly fucked up right now and the world is descending into chaos, et cetera et cetera. Which is why I’m here. It’s sort of a nobly heroic move on my part, as well as an opportunity to get away from most of the — well. Maiming. I’m here to keep you safe. Apparently, this unstoppable Beast has mentioned you by name once or twice, so, y’know. _Yikes_.”

Quentin’s always thought he was crazy, but now he’s sure he had been sane, up until about a minute ago. “Magic is real.” He says it as he goes back into the kitchen and refills his water glass. “Magic is real.” He says it again as he walks into his cramped bathroom, opening his medicine cabinet, which he can’t even open all the way unless the bathroom door is opened, too. “Magic is real,” he says, when all his pills turn into multi-colored raindrops in his hand and slide down the drain.

“Sorry,” Eliot says, and now he’s standing very close behind him. “That was a dick move. I’m certainly not one to judge self-medicating as a coping method, but we have more important things to do. Julia gave me something for you, something to help you believe me.”

Quentin turns around, and there’s barely room in his bathroom for one person, let alone two. Even with how closely they’re standing. Magic is real. Everything is pushing and railing against the blank spot in his brain, the spot that has left him feeling even more numb and useless these last few weeks. He’d thought the thing that had been missing was his will to live. Or he’d thought what was missing was the courage to try and end his life again. He hadn’t known exactly what it was, but he’d known _something_ was gone.

He’s spent his whole life feeling off, feeling wrong, and right now he still feels crazy, but it’s the first time that craziness feels _right_. Magic is real.

“What is it?” he asks, voice too loud and too soft all at once.

Eliot stares at him for a long moment, before he cups the back of Quentin’s neck, hauls him closer, and kisses him.

For a second, Quentin thinks Eliot has done another spell, the way sudden heat fills his mouth, his tongue, moving down his chest and curling in his stomach. It’s a living fire, a dancing one, and Quentin has felt cold and still for so long. Which is the only reason why Quentin grabs Eliot by the elbows and presses himself closer.

Eliot murmurs into his mouth, fingertips brushing behind his ears, and maybe that’s another spell too, because Quentin shivers all over, desperate for this in a way he hasn’t felt in months. Eliot is lean against him, hard and stupidly solid, but the fabric of his shirt is soft under Quentin’s hands, and his hair is even softer, when he finally gets around to clutching it.

Quentin finally pulls back to breathe, but he doesn’t go far. He doesn’t remember anything about a magic school, or what happened or didn’t happen a month ago. But he’s starting to suspect that magic might actually be real.

“Julia,” he says, still fisting Eliot’s hair, “did not give you that for me.”

“No?” Eliot hums, and it brushes against Quentin’s lips. “Sorry, I was guessing. I could never figure out your relationship. But I’d forgotten how cute you look when you’re panicking, so I took a chance.”

“I’m not panicking,” Quentin says, letting go of Eliot just as Eliot lets go of him. “I still don’t remember what I’m supposed to be panicking about.”

Eliot seems stuck staring at Quentin’s mouth for a moment, before actually hearing what he said. “Oh, right.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a yellowed, folded piece of paper that looks like it had been torn from a book. “A bunch of terrifyingly intense women insisted this spell would bring your memory back, if I didn’t fuck it up. I rarely like to take things seriously, but I do love proving people wrong, so you’re lucky you’ve caught me on a good night. Tell me, do you have any horrifying and painful childhood traumas you’ve rightfully repressed over the years?”

Quentin knows now, or he thinks he knows, that magic is real. But he’s also starting to suspect it’s a little bit dangerous. “Um. I mean. Probably?”

“Well, I can’t promise you those pretty little walls you’ve built up around yourself won’t come crashing down. I’ll do my best, but I think it’s more of a waterfall than an eyedropper.” He smiles again, and it reaches his eyes, but it’s also a little sad. He rubs something off Quentin’s chin. “Also, I’ll be bringing you back into a complete shitshow, with evil beings that want to murder you in terrifying and interesting ways. You don’t actually have to agree to do this.”

Eliot had told him something about a Beast, and a school, and chaos, and other universes. He’d also told him magic was real, and then kissed him in a way that made Quentin feel real, too. “No! No. I want to do it.”

“Cool.” Eliot turns around suddenly and heads back into the living room. “Let’s get to it. But there’s no rush. Let’s eat something first. Can you even _get_ pizza delivered to crack dens?”

 

* * *

 

_Timeline 11_

 

Eliot spots them behind a tree outside the library, and for a horrible second, in the dark, it looks like they’re canoodling.

There’s a quality to Quentin that Eliot can’t help but find endearing. He’s like a Disney character, a cute, lost cartoon animal in dire need of a ragtag group of friends and an uplifting musical number. Alice, however, carries herself like she’s never even sang alone in the shower. Her and Eliot’s vibes simply do not mix.

But fortunately, it just seems like they’re arguing. As Eliot gets closer, he hears Alice spit, “For some reason, you’re a part of this, so be a part of it!” before storming away.

Maybe he and Alice do have a similar vibe — a dramatic one. They’re just on polar opposite ends of the tonal spectrum.

Quentin watches after her for a long minute, and Eliot’s relieved to see it’s not a look of longing on his face. He is curious about the dread he sees there instead, though. 

Sunday nights, traditionally, are nights meant to be filled with dread. But Eliot himself is a creature of nights, and he firmly believes any night can be made a good one if you’re determined enough.

He likes the way Quentin jumps when he puts his arm over his shoulders. He especially likes the way Quentin stares up at him with his eyes wide.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Eliot says, ushering him towards the Physical Kids Cottage. “Or perhaps I’m projecting. My high school guidance counselor used to say I did that a lot, but he was just a strapping, gorgeous, flaming genius with great hair and a substance abuse problem he’ll deal with when he’s older.”

“Um,” says Quentin, but there’s a quirk at the corner of his mouth. New kids always struggle so hard with trying to keep everything serious. “I have to be — somewhere at 10…”

“Were you explicitly told to arrive sober?”

“It was sort of implied.”

“I love implications.” Eliot tugs on the back of Quentin’s hair. “They’re like a blank check to doing whatever the fuck you want instead.”

It’s only just gone 8, and Quentin hadn’t said, but Eliot knows he’s meeting Alice later. He’s all for romantic rendezvous, even the unnecessarily secret ones, but he can’t in good conscience let Quentin run off with a girl like Alice. She’s too high-strung, who knows what she’d need in order to get off. She’d likely snap Quentin in half.

There _should_ be a party going on at the Cottage, but when they get there, everything is eerily quiet. It’s like a crypt inside, unusually still and gloomy. Even on nights before finals, you could always count on someone doing a kegstand somewhere inside.

The only movement is Margo ascending the staircase, wearing just the kimono Eliot got her last Christmas and an impatient expression.

“Bambi,” he says, keeping his voice low and rushing to her side. “Who died?”

“Relax,” she says slowly, rolling her eyes. “I told everyone the _Serreta Flore_ Meteor Shower was happening tonight. It’s an incredibly powerful, rare astrological phenomenon, because it only happens once a century and is also completely fucking made up. Now everyone’s out in the woods somewhere thinking if they smoke some oregano and suck each other’s dicks by the light of the moon, it’ll increase their magical potency or whatever. I decided it was a self-care night. I’m going to take a bath.”

Eliot pouts. “But blacking out is _my_ self-care.”

Margo’s smirks are like those Magic Eye pictures everyone fucked with in the 90s when they couldn’t afford drugs yet. To anyone else they just look cruel. But when she smirks at Eliot, it’s soft and loving. She looks over Eliot’s head and eyes Quentin up and down, and her mouth doesn’t move, but her smirk changes to mean something else entirely.

“You boys can stay,” she allows, patting Eliot’s head. “Just keep it quiet or I’ll break your balls.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Margo leans in close, pretending to kiss him on the cheek. “I’ll start with him first. That’ll ruin _both_ your nights.”

She says it loud enough for Quentin to hear. His fear is so tangible Eliot can feel it without even looking at him. How did this child ever survive a schoolyard?

“Go soak, we’re just having a nightcap,” Eliot insists, stepping away from her. “Like gentleman, cigars and brandy only. Q has elsewhere to be tonight.” After a thought, he adds, “Don’t touch my bubble bath, I’ll _know._ ”

“You never knew all the other times,” Margo drawls, winking at Quentin and then heading up the stairs.

Quentin watches her disappear with frightened eyes, either afraid of her words or her naked body clearly visible through the kimono. “I don’t like brandy,” he says faintly. “Or cigars.”

“That’s because we’re students, not gentlemen. Hard liquor and menthols it is.”

__

Behind Quentin, the clock on the wall ticks to 10:45, but he doesn’t notice it, and Eliot isn’t about to remind him. Quentin’s too busy holding himself, cracking up at Eliot’s story. They’re sitting in the window seat near the stairs, the clear, perfectly ordinary sky bathing them both in moonlight. They’ve taken their shoes off, their feet not touching but near each other between them on the seat.

Eliot smiles, watching him, feeling warm all over, and not just because Eliot is tucking his hair behind his flushed red ears. When he drinks with a friend and not at a party, he likes to be on an even playing field. Which means while Quentin’s only had three drinks in the last couple hours, Eliot’s finishing his sixth. Without anything else rocketing around his system, they’re both equal levels of buzzed and comfortable.

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” Eliot is saying. “So that the animal — the _bird_ brain can properly fucking take over, but I managed to coax all the secrets of this place out of a kind, impressionable second year student. The Nature kids are so trusting.”

“If it’s a secret, are you — what, dooming me to failure?” Quentin asks cheerfully, finishing the rest of his bright blue drink. Only his third, but Eliot couldn’t mix a weak cocktail if he tried. Quentin’s sweater is rolled up to his elbows, and he has, Eliot notices, nice arms. One of his hands is wrapped up in a bandana.

Eliot is a curious person, but only idly so. He wants to know things, but he finds it’s easier to not push and let the answers come to him. They always do.

“Almost definitely,” Eliot assures him, tapping Quentin’s foot with his own, and then he just. Leaves it there. “But anyway, the timing was also _too_ perfect. We were already flying south, so why not take a quick detour over the White House? And the fucker just happened to be talking outside in his — fucking garden or whatever, talking to reporters. Or shouting at them. Anyway, I think it was destiny.”

“Oh my god, I _remember_ this!” Quentin leans forward, grabs Eliot by the knee to get his attention, as though he didn’t have it all already, completely. “Me and James, Julia’s ex, went, like, fucking nuts over it. It went viral for a couple days.”

“Well, goose shit in the world’s worst toupee,” Eliot says proudly. “I hope I won someone a Pulitzer.”

“Wow.” Quentin leans back against the window, and his knees open a little when he does so, but Eliot Does Not Look. “You’re a meme.” He sounds awed, breathless.

“You’re so easily impressed, Coldwater.” He wants to get Quentin another drink, and one for himself too, but he’s afraid if he gets up, whatever spell they’ve managed to cast together, here, would break and Quentin might finally notice the time. Instead, he leans forward to pour half of his own drink into Quentin’s cup. “I haven’t even told you about my high school performance of Les Mis that went viral when I—”

Quentin cuts him off with a kiss. It’s warm and wet, quick but not even slightly hesitant or timid, tasting of smoke and sugar. When he pulls back, his eyes are wild, surprised at himself.

A second passes, and Eliot asks, “That wasn’t because of my internet cred, was it?”

Quentin shakes his head, biting his lip. “That’s for letting me know about the Antarctica part of the semester,” he says finally, not looking away. “Probably good to know.”

Eliot hums, gently placing his cup on the windowsill. Then he leans closer again, slowly, pointedly pulling Quentin’s out of his slack grip and placing it beside the other. “I have plenty of good tips, y’know,” he says. “I’m a fount of valuable information.”

This time, Quentin’s kiss is equally hot, equally wet, just as confident as before. But this time, he stays longer, holding Eliot by the face. Eliot lets Quentin hold him how he wants, opens his mouth when Quentin sweetly asks for it, so that when Eliot leans back, Quentin goes with, crawling into his lap.

He runs his bandaged hand down Eliot’s neck, and maybe that’s what makes him break the kiss. Not feeling Eliot’s skin when he’d expected to.

Quentin sits back in Eliot’s lap, breathing hard. Eliot says nothing, just watching as Quentin frowns down at his hand before slowly removing the bandana, revealing his perfectly unblemished palm.

“What is it?” Eliot asks softly, running his hands under Quentin’s sweater.

“Nothing,” Quentin says. He’s still looking at his palm, but he shudders under Eliot’s touch. “I guess.”

He still seems distracted by his hand, so Eliot takes it. He brings it to his mouth and licks a long line across his palm, tracing the love line with his tongue.

Quentin’s gasps, like that act alone is the most shocking fucking thing that’s happened tonight. Then he’s back on Eliot’s mouth, stretching out across the length of him.

The thing is, Eliot’s not new at this. He’s been around, and he’s also smart. So he knows what to look for when it comes to people. He can tell who’s interested right away, who might come around to the idea, who is only good to tease and nothing else, and who he should pretend to be naught but a monk around less he want to get the shit kicked out of him. 

He’s rarely wrong. It means he’s rarely surprised by the behaviors of most people, but that’s alright. He can’t think of any situation where someone has surprised him in a positive way.

Except now. Except for Quentin kissing hot bites down into his neck and whispering, “Can I — Jesus, El, _can_ I —“ and Eliot has no idea what he’s talking about so he just nods, clutching at the back of Quentin’s head, murmuring, “You can do whatever you’d like to me.”

Except for Quentin pulling away from Eliot completely, so he can slide to the floor, pulling on Eliot’s feet until they’re down, and kneeling between his open legs.

Eliot’s so surprised, he thinks his dick might explode.

“Holy fuck,” he says, and he hates himself, he _hates himself_ , because he forces himself to ask, “Are you sure?”

Quentin nods, running his hands up Eliot’s thighs before starting on his belt buckle. “Yes. I — I’ve done it before. Once. It wasn’t….great, but I always wanted to do it again. I think about it a lot, I’ve just never…”

“Why not?”

Quentin shrugs, leaning forward to nuzzle against Eliot’s stomach. Into it, he says, “It felt safer to only get rejected by girls. I mean, my school was pretty progressive, but you never know what guy might take offense and beat you up for it.”

Eliot runs his fingers through Quentin’s hair, his dick straining hard against his trousers, because Quentin, for all his eagerness, is taking his damn _time._ He’s unbuckled his pants but is now just nibbling at Eliot's bare stomach, his vest and shirt unbuttoned just above his navel. His hands run up and down Eliot’s thighs like he’s trying to start a fire, but he’s doing it too fucking _slow_ for that to work. Breathlessly, Eliot asks, “What makes you think I’m safe?”

He wants Quentin to say something cool, like “I know you’re not.” Or something offensive, intentional or not, about how Eliot is _clearly_ up for dick even if he hasn’t explicitly stated it. Or maybe something sexy, like how he noticed Eliot undressing him with his eyes from day one and how much it turned him on.

Instead, Eliot looks up at him and smiles. “Because you’re nice to me.” And then he places his mouth right over Eliot’s clothed dick.

Eliot _shouts_ , uncaring of Margo’s fucking self-care seclusion, because Quentin is sucking him through a pair of $500 Armani trousers and he’s entirely too sober for this to be anything other than fast. He clutches onto Quentin’s hair like a lifeline, and it’s as perfect to hold as he’s always suspected. Belatedly, harshly, because he can barely breathe, he says, “I’m not fucking _nice.”_

He can feel Quentin grin, until he leans back. He can’t go far, because Eliot is curled up around his head, thighs clenched tight around his shoulders. “You are, too. You’re so nice to me.”

Quentin is still grinning, and it’s such a relief, because even though he surprised Eliot, he’d still been right about who Quentin is. He’d know there was something more under that serious, morose, tightly-wound supernerd exterior, and here he is. Here’s the Quentin he’d hoped existed: someone equally goofy and slutty. The perfect combination, in Eliot’s accurate opinion.

“Well, then,” says Eliot, bending closer, but not kissing him again. He has other uses for that mouth. “Since I’m so nice, I will remind you, _nicely,_ Mr. Solo-Dick-Sucker, that it works better when the dick is inside your mouth, not my pants.”

Quentin does kiss him them, and now Eliot knows he’s doing it on purpose. Quentin remembers he was supposed to be somewhere else tonight, but he’s taking his time here, with Eliot, instead. He wants to be here.

“Margo threatened to break our balls, and you just want to take your dick out down here?” Quentin stands up, and holds out his hand. “You’re nice, but sometimes you aren’t very smart.”

They walk past the clock without even glancing at it, and head up the stairs.

Tonight is good. The next morning is even better. They don’t hear about Alice, found in a coma beside a stolen book and a mirror inside the lab, until the afternoon, but that’s to worry about later.

 

* * *

 

_Timeline 23_

 

He’s been staring at the bloodied remains of Margo’s face for ten minutes when he hears the footsteps. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even twitch. Eliot’s been slowly dying from a hole in his gut, and even if he didn’t have that, staring at the inside of Margo’s skull had driven him completely insane so, like. Whatever.

It’s a small mercy — all the things Quentin stole from the other Beast, at least he didn’t take that stupid, skipping walk.

But he doesn’t walk like Quentin anymore, either. Quentin used to scurry, a quick pace almost unnoticeable, but it matched the rhythm of his heart, the way he tapped his fingers over everything, the way he fidgeted with his hair. He used to shuffle next to Eliot, rushing just a little to keep up with Eliot’s longer strides. His walk suited him.

Now, Quentin — _strolls._ Completely at ease. He’s not keeping up with anyone anymore.

Eliot doesn’t move when Quentin approaches. What move is he going to make? All he has on him is a stomach wound, Margo’s blood splatters and viscera, and a small dagger they’d used in the ritual, before everything went to shit. It’s looped into his belt, and it’s completely useless. It might as well be a stalk of celery.

So Eliot is still looking at Margo when Quentin’s feet enter his line of vision. He hears, “Hmm.”

And then Quentin bends down, resting on his heels. No moths in sight. “This is going to sound a little weird,” he says, “but I was thinking of doing something _just_ like this like, an hour ago.”

Eliot doesn’t say anything. He’s focused on the rattle of each breath. He’s focused on the ceramic glaze of Margo’s remaining eye. It’s the fairy one. He wonders if she can still see him with it.

Quentin waves his hand — still six fingers, because _that’s_ not illusion magic, of course. It’s just there to make sure _nothing_ makes sense. And then Margo is gone.

“ _No,”_ Eliot gasps. He jerks, struggling to sit up against the wall, but his arms feel like lead in his lap. “Where’s — where’s — where’s Margo, where’s Bambi, _where’s_ —”

“Shhh.” Quentin cups Eliot’s jaw, forcing his eyes up. “She’s…” He smiles. “She’s gone to a better place.”

Eliot shakes his head, but Quentin’s palm stays where it is, warm and too human. Now Eliot can’t look anywhere else but at him. It’s a different type of madness.

“Is that my vest?” he asks.

Now Quentin grins. “Does it look good?” He runs an unnatural hand down it, fingering silver button.

Eliot can’t move his head, so he closes his eyes. Then he opens them again when Quentin squeezes down hard on his jaw, and he gasps again in pain.

“What were you two getting up to, anyway?”

It’s a stupid question, so Eliot doesn’t answer it. Besides, everything is going gray and fuzzy around the edges, and he thinks, happily, that he might finally be dying. His eyes fall shut again.

“Ohh,” says Quenin. “I see.”

Suddenly, Eliot feels a pressure at his side, and then a tingling like ice. He flinches as it spreads over his entire body, boring out from the wound. He can’t control his body anymore, the tremors and twitches as he tries to pull away from Quentin, a ragged shout stuck in his throat.

“Shhh, hey,” Quentin soothes again. He’s still holding him, one hand on his face, the other still on his stomach. “Relax. I haven’t healed you or anything. I just slowed the bleeding so you’ll take longer to die. I figured you’d probably want that anyway — Margo dying quick and fast, you nice and slow like you deserve. Am I right?”

Eliot tries to control his breathing. His vision blurs again, but it’s only tears this time. Quentin’s hand slowed it, but that only exacerbated the pain. His whole body has become a wound.

He doesn’t answer Quentin’s question, because he _is_ right. “What — what do you _want?_ ”

“World peace,” he says, his eyes all lit up. He looks as sweet as he used to look. He hasn’t removed his hands. “No, I’m fucking with you. I have a proposal for you.”

Eliot can’t help the laugh that comes out of his mouth. A startled, rolling cackle that sounds like a hare when it’s caught in a trap. He laughs, and Quentin lets him. He doesn’t seem offended by it, which is the worst thing about all this. Quentin doesn’t get mad. He isn’t capable of it.

He’s only patient. He has all the time in the world.

When Eliot stops, he isn’t any closer to death, and the six-fingered hand on his chin has moved back into his hair, positioning his head forward like a child would a doll. This is Quentin’s game, and he wants a listener.

“I was thinking about it, just now,” Quentin says, smiling. “What does every classic movie villain have?”

“A violent death?” Eliot guesses.

Quentin shakes Eliot’s head for him. “I was thinking about how I needed a partner. No, not a partner. I want to say a _minion_ , but that words been ruined now by those stupid yellow fuckers. But, yeah. A minion. Every classic movie bad guy has their one little underling, who gets to wade around in the gore of their former classmates so the real bad guy doesn’t have it. You interested?”

_What?_ He might as well have been speaking another language. “¿Qué?”

“Even Darth Vader was a minion to Emperor Palpatine.” Quentin gives him an encouraging smile. “You can be my Vader. I’ll even give you a little magic for helping me. Well, after you help me. Honestly, you’d probably be more like my Renfield. I promise you, though, you won’t have to eat bugs.”

“Why—” The words stick in his throat. The words he knows he’s supposed to say. “Why— would I ever — want to…”

“Oh, come on,” Quentin says, rolling his eyes. He bounces on his toes a little. “Don’t pretend you have a moral backbone now. The only reason you were even trying to stand up to me was peer pressure from people who are far, far better that you. You’ve never been a good person, Eliot. You belong at my side. You told me once, power comes from pain. Even with the little bit of magic I would give you, you’d still be incredibly helpful to me, the amount of pain you’re in. We could do awesome things together.”

Eliot’s having trouble seeing straight. Everything is shimmering, and he thinks it might be what Quentin’s magic looks like in a world without any. There are little bits of Margo scattered by his feet. He manages to slip one hand from his lap to the floor beside him.

“You—” He takes a deep breath. “You want me to, what? Get you coffee? Pick— pick up your dry cleaning? You want to — to _Devil Wears Prada_ it up?”

Quentin clicks with his tongue. “I knew I should have made the Meryl reference,” he says. “I lost you with the Star Wars thing, didn’t I?”

He’d lost Quentin a lot longer before that. “Why— why would you want that? Want someone—”

“I’m bored. It’s not personal.” He scratches behind Eliot’s ear like a dog. “You’re here! I would have asked Margo, if she hadn’t blown up. I bet she would have agreed faster.”

Eliot shifts under Quentin’s hands, trying to sit up properly. Quentin doesn’t stop him, but he doesn’t help either. It feels like his entire body is being dragged across gravel and glass. “What’s,” he says, and swallows. “What’s in it for me?”

“It’s funny you still think this is actually a negotiation,” Quentin points out, as though he were capable of understanding humor anymore. “But how’s this. I’ll just torture and kill you if you say no, but if you say yes, it’ll give you another shot at killing me.”

Eliot wants to laugh again. He can’t kill Quentin. Even if he wasn’t untouchable, he couldn’t kill Quentin. That’s how he got Margo dead, after all. That’s how he wound up here.

“Besides, you might even start to enjoy yourself.” Quentin brings his hand down over his jaw again, down his chin, running a thumb over his bottom lip. “Your heart was never really into this goodly, heroic quest bullshit anyway. You think you were destined to be High King of a place as fucked as Fillory because of your virtue? Kings only ever rule, and kill, and rape, and burn. You were meant to be here with me.”

Quentin’s gaze bounces back and forth from Eliot’s eyes to his mouth, waiting eagerly for whatever response Eliot will give. It’ll amuse him, either way. He seems utterly focused on that and nothing else. When Eliot says, “Okay,” Quentin’s grin is blinding.

“Let’s seal this deal the way the old Gods did,” he says, leaning in. “I think we’re well past a handshake at this point.”

The press of his lips against Eliot’s is passionless. It’s soulless, because Quentin doesn’t have one. There’s no heat, there’s no desire, as twisted as it might be. He kisses Eliot for the symbolism, idly appreciative of the aesthetic of it. He kisses Eliot because, objectively, he knows it’ll destroy whatever spirit there might be left inside Eliot. It’s just a press of lips against lips, which is fine, because it distracts Quentin long enough that he doesn’t notice when Eliot takes out his small dagger and plunges it into his own chest.

Whatever spells Quentin used on his other wounds aren’t fast enough to slow down a knife directly to the heart. Before he goes, the last thing he feels is Quentin’s breath on his mouth, and the last thing he hears is, “Well, you don’t have to be such a _baby_ about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Timeline 31 (epilogue)_

 

“This is the worst day of my life,” Eliot says, his head falling to the bar just as a team behind them rolls another strike.

"Technically,” says Quentin, rubbing his beer glass between his hands, “I don’t know if this counts as a _day_ anymore. But, uh. I get your point.”

Eliot doesn’t lift his head, but he turns it, glaring up at Quentin with an irritated gaze. He’s still wearing his Fillory crown. It clacks on the bar with his movements.

Everything smells of nacho cheese and feet and, underneath, that particular Underworld smell of grass and lillies. For a bowling alley, it’s neither great or terrible. It’s just a bowling alley.

“Who would want to spend their afterlife _bowling_ ,” he says, not a question. “Are we _sure_ this isn’t Hell?”

“It’s not Hell.” Quentin pours more beer from their pitcher into Eliot’s empty glass. “It’s just a way station. I think it’s supposed to be nostalgic.” He thinks about it. “I had my twelfth birthday party in a place like this. It wasn’t, uh. Great.”

Eliot groans, rolling back to face the sticky surface of the bar. Quietly, angrily, he mutters, “My parents were on a bowling league.”

Quentin winces, wondering if he should try to find somewhere else for them to hang out. He could never tell if the hatred Eliot felt for his family was warranted due to actual abuse and mistreatment, or just resentment at the myriad of differences between them. He never spoke of specifics from his childhood, other than the incident with the bully and the bus, but even that had been treated with Eliot’s usual flippant air.

Carefully, he asks, “Did you manage to find them here?”

Eliot shakes his head, or maybe he’s using the bar and his crown to scratch his forehead. “I asked someone. They said they already moved on, which doesn’t surprise me.” He turns again to Quentin. “They’ve never been lingerers.”

_Like us_ , Quentin hears, but neither of them say it.

They’d all arrived as a group to the Underworld, along with most of the planet. But despite the crowds, they’d had a chance to be first in line to pass through to what waited for them in the great beyond, or whatever. Everyone else managed to get the closure they needed before moving on to wherever they were going next. Only Quentin and Eliot seemed to be hanging around.

The two of them, arguably the most eager to die, or at least the only ones not too concerned about it happening, and yet they’re the ones still clinging to life. Death is too fucking ironic.

Behind them, another lane lands a strike. They all get strikes or spares, here. It’s the thing about the Underworld, since it’s not Hell _or_ Heaven. So you can easily win every bowling game you play, which feels good, but then you see everyone else winning, realize it’s actually impossible to lose, and all the satisfaction drifts away. It’s neither good or bad. The bowlers here have all the attitude of a degenerate gambler mindlessly sticking coin after coin into a slot machine, waiting for something new to happen.

But with the sudden influx of dead souls, there was a backlog on the whole _moving-on_ process. People had to do something to kill the time.

Another strike, another half-hearted cheer, and Eliot sits up. He grabs his now-full pint and downs it all in one go, gulping until only the dregs remain. Quentin watches, wide-eyed.

“What?” Eliot asks. “Bowling alley beer is basically water and piss. I could finish a pitcher by myself by the time I was sixteen. And that was when it actually _got me drunk._ Are you sure—”

“It’s not Hell,” Quentin says again. “It just….sucks.”

Eliot rests his elbow on the bar and leans heavily on his hand. They’re still in the clothes they died in, so Eliot is still dressed like a king. His scabbard is empty, and the black, sheer shirt he’s wearing has lost most of the fallout dust since they’ve arrived, but it’s not as shiny as Quentin knows it had been. The sash around his waist frayed, his knee-high boots scuffed.

He blinks at Quentin slowly, exhausted, even though they don’t need to sleep. “Still can’t think of any secrets?”

“ _No,_ ” Quentin mutters into what’s left of his beer. “It’s such a stupid rule.”

All they needed to do to move on is confess their Secrets Taken To The Grave, but Quentin is having a hard time thinking of any. There’s the secret that he and his friends ended the world, accidentally, which _should_ have counted since no one else knew it but them. But it doesn’t count because it’s a secret he _shares_. Whether or not he’s admitted it out loud to anyone else is irrelevant. People already know.

It’s a stupid rule. It’s a stupid Underworld. It’s a stupid death and a stupid way for the world to end. How were they supposed to have known Ember could summon an asteroid?

Eliot’s still watching him, waiting for Quentin to come up with an idea, or a plan, which Quentin realizes he does often. Or, he did. He doesn’t know why Eliot would still be waiting for him. His plans turn out to be epic fucking failures, especially the last one.

With Eliot watching him, with heavy-lidded eyes, Quentin does get an idea.

“Do you think regrets count as secrets?”

Eliot already looks done with the conversation. He closes his eyes briefly and shrugs. “If you didn’t tell anymore, then yeah, probably.”

“Okay,” Quentin says, looking back into his beer. That was something. That opened up a world of possibilities. He couldn’t think of any shameful action he’d taken without anyone knowing (although there must be some) but he has had plenty of _thoughts_ he kept to himself, wishes and regrets he could never share with anyone. He used to share everything with Julia, once upon a time, but as they got older, that got harder. And their lives got way more complicated, it was hard to keep track of all the things they didn’t say.

“Well, come on, Q,” says Eliot. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

“What?”

“You can’t just tease me like that,” he says, leaning closer. “Aren’t you going to share with the class?”

Quentin really should save it for the Secrets room, but as soon as they confess everything, they’ll disappear from here. He has no idea what’s waiting for them when that happens, if they’ll ever see each other again. The thought fills him with panic.

But they can’t hang out in a bowling alley for eternity. And he wants to make Eliot smile, one last time, before they get to where they’re going. One particular regret surfaces in his mind, with Eliot so close. It’s embarrassing as fuck, but he knows Eliot will enjoy it.

He finishes his beer, and looking at the remaining foam, he says, “Um, well. To start. I guess I regret that I don’t remember… anything from that night with you and Margo.”

“You _what?_ ”

Quentin looks over at Eliot. He _is_ smiling, though incredulously, his eyes as wide as Quentin's ever seen them.

“ _That’s_ what you regret about that night?”

Quentin’s whole face feels on fire. “I mean, I regret _cheating_ on Alice, but that’s not a secret.” He buries his face in his hands. Just because he wanted Eliot to lighten up, doesn’t mean he wants to look at it. “I just regret not _remembering_ it. I always wondered if it had been….well, good enough to ruin a perfectly good relationship over.”

“It was.”

Quentin looks up.

Eliot is idly drawing in the condensation on the bar. His long fingers are tracing a sigil that’s supposed to purify grave dirt, but it only works with oil, not water. He still looks pleased as fucking punch.

“You _remember?_ But you _said_ —”

“No, I don’t,” Eliot insists. “Well, didn’t. Later, I did remember.” He looks at Quentin out the corner of his eye, admitting, “After I did a spell.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Eliot shrugs. “Didn’t think you’d want to know, the way you kept trying to fix things with Alice. Which, you were totally right to do and I wasn’t going to fuck that up anymore than I already had, since it was clear it’s what you wanted, at the time.” He sighs. “I told Margo, though, so this can’t even count as a Secret for me.”

Quentin tries to remember that night, as he’s done before. It’s all just fragments. The smell of rosemary from Margo’s shampoo, the scratch of her long nails down his spine. Stubble against his lips and his neck. Large hands gripping his hair too tight. A weight on his tongue, his heart beating in his throat. Just hints, satisfaction tangled up with sickly horror at the memory of the following morning.

He’d always thought it a mercy that at least it hadn’t fucked up his friendship with Eliot and Margo, if none of them could remember any intimate details. It had been the first time he’d slept with anyone that hadn’t ended in some kind of trauma for him, with the other person either growing to hate him or become disinterested in him with varying degrees of severity and speed. On some level, Quentin had taken that to mean that he just wasn’t meant to be that kind of _known_ to another person. That that sort of intimacy wasn’t for him. That he was better off forgotten.

Except Eliot remembered everything, and he hadn’t left. Never hated him. Never lost interest. He’d stayed at Quentin’s side, until the very end. And even, it seems, a little while after, too.

“Can you tell me about it?” he asks.

Eliot’s eyes widen again. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. It’s hard to make Eliot speechless.

Behind them, another person strikes, making them both jump. Eliot scowls over his shoulder.

“Christ, not _here_ ,” he grumbles, leaping off his barstool and dragging Quentin away by the wrist.

They find themselves in an empty office of what would be the manager of the bowling alley, if it had been real. It was a small, concrete box, with a large, 1980s wooden desk, mustard-yellow carpeting, fast food wrappings left in a trashcan, and a fan idly moving back and forward atop a chipped filing cabinet.

“Who the fuck needs this kind of detail,” Eliot says as he closes the door, which has a janitorial cleaning schedule attached to a clipboard on the back of the door. He sounds momentarily enraged. “Who is paying that fucking close attention?”

Quentin says nothing. He sits against the desk, gripping the sides. Without the constant thunder of pins and chattering of dead souls, everything is suddenly too quiet. 

This is just guy talk. Guys talk about having sex all the time, Quentin knows. _He’s_ never done it, but he has overheard other guys do it, and it’s just like that. It’s normal.

They’re talking about having sex with each other, but it’s normal.

Eliot comes to sit next to him on the desk. There are plastic binders and legal pads and crystal ballpoint pens scattered all along it. It’s all pretty absurd, but he can’t think of a place that would make Quentin feel casual about this. They are dead, and Eliot is sitting close enough so their hands brush on the desk, which has coffee ring stains and post-it notes cluttering around them. It wouldn’t have felt more comfortable than if they’d been sitting on a cloud with halos and harps.

“I’ll summarize some parts, the ones that include Margo,” Eliot starts, not looking at Quentin. “Because — because it hurts to think about her, I guess.”

“We don’t have to,” Quentin says quickly, because he’s an idiot, he didn’t even _think_.

“It’s fine,” Eliot says, equally fast. “Actually, I’m sure she’d find this whole thing incredibly hilarious. Making the dead blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” Quentin says, although his ears do feel oddly hot underneath his hair, and Eliot hasn’t even said anything yet.

Eliot smiles. “Well, I woke up to you two already going at it on the end of the bed. You were both shirtless, kneeling, and I remember thinking how surprising it was, that you were giving just as much as Margo was, not letting her completely dominate you, which I know most guys do automatically with her. She was winning, it was obvious, but you weren’t exactly making it easy for her, which I know she liked.”

Okay. Now Quentin is blushing.

“We have a rule,” Eliot continues, looking down at his hands. “Or, had. We certainly weren’t strangers to the occasional orgy, or a good _throupling_ , but those usually started out that way. We knew we couldn’t just join in whenever we wanted, unless explicitly asked by both parties, even if the sex was happening on the very fucking bed I was already passed out on. And even though I was completely out of my mind on emotions and alcohol, I remembered this and knew to quietly get up and find somewhere else to pass out, which is really a shame that no one remembered that because it was truly my most selfless action.”

And then Eliot says, “It took me a moment to move, though. I couldn’t stop staring at your back.”

Quentin’s whole body seems to be throbbing, like he’s one gigantic heartbeat. He says, voice hoarse, “My back?”

Eliot hums, shifting a little on the desk. “Yeah. I was surprised by your shoulders. You tend to hunch over when you walk, and it hides how broad they are. How smooth. I couldn’t stop staring at where your hair curls at the nape of your neck, or the welts rising on along your spine from Margo’s nails. She hadn’t gotten your pants off yet, but they were undone, and barely hanging onto your hips. I could see the faintest hint of your ass and I thought if I stayed still and not breathe, I could wait until you were finally off before getting up to leave.

“So. I waited.”

Quentin feels like he might accidentally set the desk on fire. This isn’t — what he meant. This isn’t what he’d wanted to know. He’d just wanted to know if it was _good._  He’d wanted to know what, exactly, they’d done. It sounds childish, but he’d wanted to know _positions_ and that kind of thing. No one had ever talked to him about his body before, at least not in such a positive way. In such a heated way. The _tone_ of Eliot’s voice, Quentin’s not sure how much more he can take. He feels equally flush with embarrassment and lust.

They died. They’re souls, now. But they’re in the way station between life and the afterlife, before judgement, which meant their bodies worked as regular bodies, more or less. The magic here is fuzzy and ill-defined. But Quentin knows that souls can have sex, can _want_ sex, because the time he’d spent wandering around this place had resulted in him walking into a number of horrifying situations. The bowling alley hadn’t actually been all that bad, in comparison.

And Eliot is still talking.

“I finally got up to leave, having gotten my eyeful.” Quentin doesn’t even need to look at him to know he’s smirking, he can hear it. “I don’t know how stealthy I was being, because, like I said, I was wasted. But then—”

“What?” Quentin breathes. With each new detail, he can remember the scratches, he can remember the comforter on his knees and the bite of Margo’s teeth. It’s like remembering a language you studied years ago after being dropped into a foreign country. He’s remembering as though it’s a matter of survival. “What?”

“Then, you grabbed my wrist,” Eliot says softly. “You broke away from Margo, and you stopped me from leaving. You pulled me to the bed, you pulled me down, and then you kissed me. And I kissed you back.”

All of Quentin’s life, he’d felt like he’d done things backwards. Done things just a little off, but he’s always been too self-aware, so that the right things always felt clearer in hindsight. He thought of Penny telling him he’d never be a man, just one of a long line of insults about his manliness, about his experience, about his cool. He’d grown used to it. This is just how he was. He had no cool.

He’d felt cool, briefly, when Eliot and Margo had first taken an interest in him, because they obviously _were_ cool, and he’d thought this new magic school had been a chance to reinvent himself. It hadn’t worked. But to hear from Eliot that he had made someone like Margo _work_ for it, that he’d been confident enough to drag someone like Eliot to him and kiss him like it’s what he deserved — Quentin feel _cool_.

Quentin, that night, under the influence of _whatever_ , had felt powerful in a way he’d never had before.

It’s the same kind of power he feels now, a trembling, heated power to make him say, “How?”

Eliot pauses, and then says, a questioning tone, “I was just trying to slip by you guys, and you must have seen me, be—”

“No, Eliot,” says Quentin. “ _How?”_

Time doesn’t work in the Underworld. Time doesn’t actually exist. He has no idea how long they’ve been dead for, actually, how long it’s been since his friends moved on, how long it’s been just him and Eliot, hanging around.

That being said, it takes Eliot for-fucking- _ever_ to figure out what Quentin is asking.

When he gets there, though, he immediately stands. He faces Quentin, and grabs him by the wrist, his face both determined but cautious. But then he’s pulling Quentin to him, and then he’s kissing him, and then time isn’t a factor anymore.

He remembers kissing Eliot, is the thing. Or, he thought he did. He remembers trying his hardest to keep from spinning and the only way to do that was by sucking on Eliot’s tongue. All he really remembers from that night is an oppressive need. Not a want, a _need_. He’d needed Eliot’s hand on his neck, keeping him in place. He’d needed his arms around him, his fingers skating over his ribcage, his own fingers reaching down to grasp him. He’d spent almost his entire time at Brakebills up until that point absolutely petrified, and he’d needed Eliot to hold him _still._

Kissing Eliot now — it’s exactly the same.

“Not quite,” Eliot murmurs onto his lips. He pulls back just far enough to get Quentin’s shirt off and nudge him back onto the edge of the desk. “Now it’s right,” he says, stroking his shoulders before grabbing another fistful of Quentin’s hair. He tugs until all of Quentin’s neck is exposed, until Quentin is forced to arch his back, leaning on the desk, Eliot braced between his thighs.

He thinks he knows, as he starts pulling at Eliot’s belt, but he asks, breathless, “Then what happened?”

Eliot stops sucking on Quentin’s Adams apple, but only to bite his way back to his lips. “You and —” He stops to pull Quentin’s bottom lip between his teeth. “You both got me to your level of — undress.” He pauses while Quentin pulls his shirt off, the silky material slipping through his fingers like water. They leave the crown. They’re not going for _total_ realism. “And then I…”

Quentin’s at eye level with Eliot’s chest though, so he’s really only half-listening. He’s also focused on licking Eliot’s clavicle, bending a little further to suck one of his nipples into his mouth.

Eliot cries out, clutching the back of Quentin’s head and keeping him there while he worries the pink bud under his tongue until Eliot’s pec is flushed and hot in his mouth. He digs his knees into Eliot’s thighs and mumbles, “And then you what?”

In a move that might have been magic, except they can’t really do that anymore, Eliot pulls Quentin off the desk, spins him around, presses him against the door, throwing the clipboard over his shoulder and plasters himself against Quentin’s back — all in the blink of an eye.

Quentin hadn’t noticed when Eliot undid his pants, but his hands are roaming everywhere now, up his back, into his hair, down his sides, and pushing at his jeans until they’re around his knees. Eliot is so warm behind him, and Quentin doesn’t know if he’ll wind up in Hell after all is said and done, but he’s starting to think he won’t mind the flames, if they feel this hot.

“And then I flipped you onto your belly,” Eliot whispers into his ear, grinding his still clothed dick into Quentin’s bare ass. “And you were writhing so _pretty_ under me, Q, you wouldn’t stop moving. And the things you were saying…”

“What?” Quentin wants so much to turn around and see Eliot, and kiss him, and tough him, but this is how Eliot had him before, and this is how he wants him now. His forehead digs into the door, looking down at the way Eliot’s hand skims over his stomach, grazing the base of his cock. “What, El, what did I say?”

Eliot finally — _finally_ — touches his dick. He gives it a single stroke, letting Quentin moan and buck sharply into his hand, before saying, “You were begging me to fuck you, Q. You just wanted me to fill you right up, right there in front of Margo.”

Quentin groans, throwing his head back onto Eliot’s shoulder as he fucks up into his hand. Eliot’s words aren’t surprising. Past-Quentin and Present-Quentin pretty much have the same fucking idea. He reaches back blindly to fist Eliot’s har, needing some part to touch. “Did — did — _did you_ , Christ…”

And Eliot says, “No,” and bites into his neck.

His hands withdraw from Quentin’s dick, making him jerk and cry out, and he can feel Eliot grin where he’s still got his teeth in Quentin’s skin. He feels Eliot shifting behind him with his trousers, not moving away.

“I —God.” He stops biting to press open mouthed kisses onto the back of Quentin’s neck. “I _wanted_ to, but...I knew we were so fucking up, and I…. I didn’t know if it would have been your first time, and I — fuck, Q, I didn’t want to hurt you or fuck up any spells and I wanted it to be good, I wanted to be so _good_ for you, Q. I wanted to spend hours getting you slicked up and opened for me to slide right in, I wanted you to ride me like you _earned_ it. We were fucked up but I knew we didn’t have the fucking _time_ to do all the things I wanted to do to you.”

Quentin grinds his ass back into his Eliot, his heart jumping when he feels — yeah, he’s got his pants down finally. “How many — _fucking_ times do I have to tell you guys I’m not a virgin.”

“Just once more.”

“ _Fuck_ me, Eliot.”

A large hand comes around from the other side, forcing Quentin to turn his head further in order for Eliot to kiss him properly. It’s barely a kiss, open and wet, more harsh panting into each other’s mouths, and it kills Quentin’s neck because of the angle, and it kills Quentin’s heart because it feels so good.

“In the back office of a fucking _undead bowling alley_?” Eliot’s eyes are blown black, but he manages to sound deeply offended. “No way. There must be a Ritz-Carlton in this crapshoot of an afterlife somewhere. At the very least a Holiday Inn. I need a mattress, several clean pillows, blackout shades, and immediate access to hot water for everything I want to do to you. Besides, we’re still going over that night, right? This is what we did.”

His hand is suddenly slick, stroking Quentin’s dick firmly again. Quentin looks down and sees, in his other hand, a tiny, half-empty jar.

“Do you just _carry_ around body oil at all times?”

Eliot’s hand pauses, which is the opposite of what Quentin wants, but seriously, _did he_? “Would you believe me,” Eliot says carefully, “if I said that all the clothes in the King’s wardrobe had jars of oil stitched into the pockets? I think to be Fillorian royalty you have to be some kind of pervert. It would explain how I was chosen to be High King, at any rate.”

Quentin, God help him, is about to protest that, because Eliot died never having actually read the fucking books still and the Chatwins weren’t _perverts_ , not even Martin, come the fuck on, but then Eliot, perhaps sensing this, spills the rest of the oil down the crack in Quentin’s ass, and then he’s just moaning. He shivers all over, and he doesn’t stop when Eliot presses back into him and starts fucking his thighs.

He can’t do much to keep Eliot closer, except to keep his legs as tight as possible and fuck back, but he’s too slick with oil. He’s frantic to keep Eliot close. He doesn’t remember doing this before, but he can picture it. He’s always loved a heavy weight on top of him. He can imagine lying on his belly in that bedroom, fisting the blanket under him the way he’s scratching at the door now, bucking under Eliot’s cock and his hands tight on Quentin’s hips to keep him still.

He’s picturing then and he’s feeling now and he might already be dead, but he thinks his heart might explode anyway. He uncurls a hand from where it’s braced on the door and starts tugging himself, head thrown back onto Eliot’s shoulder again. Eliot watches and moans wetly into his ear, his own movements turning erratic and hard as he fuck up against Quentin and comes, layering the inside of his thighs.

He lets go of Quentin’s sides and starts touching all over, his hips still jerking to pace with Quentin’s hand. His fingers move over Quentin’s sternum, nipples, throat, belly, whispering, “Fuck, Q, c’mon, let’s see it, I remember it but I want to _see it_.” Until Quentin finally comes too, all over himself and the office door.

Eliot is panting heavily into his ear, still weakly moving, but he still manages to say, “Add _that_ to your fucking cleaning schedule, you undead bowling freaks.”

Quentin laughs, shakily, for the first time since he died, and probably some time before that, too. When he can feel his legs again, he shifts and turns to face Eliot, finally clutching him again like he’d been missing.

He doesn’t kiss him, though. Eliot looks a little weird. A little surprised, like he hadn’t expected Quentin to be making eye contact with him so soon. Maybe surprised this had happened at all. He can see himself reflected in Eliot’s eyes, and he thinks he should be feeling weird, too.

That night, months ago, this had all been followed by panic and heartbreak and, though unrelated, pain, misery, and death. But now they’re actually dead, and naked, and sticky, and Quentin refuses to be weird any longer.

“What happened to Margo?” he asks, curling his hands around Eliot’s neck. “That night? What was she—?”

“Oh.” All the weirdness leaves Eliot’s face in an instant. Now he just looks smug. “Rule two of our little sexcapades is if things start getting more heated for two and one get lefts aside, to not take offense or interrupt, and instead to just sit back and enjoy the show. You can imagine she got a lot more out of that rule than I ever did,” he adds, with an eye roll.

Quentin is more exposed than usual, covered in sweat and come, but his ears redden at that. “So she just _watched?_ ”

Eliot hums, unbothered. “Until we were done. Then she demanded satisfaction, rolled you over onto your back, and rode your face until she screamed. When I told her, she was pissed she couldn’t make fun of you for not getting her off.” He runs a thumb over Quentin’s bottom lip, smiling dreamily. “I never did get to try out your mouth, y’know, but I’ve heard _great_ things.”

Okay, now Quentin is definitely blushing again, which is absurd. Also, since they don’t technically have physical bodies anymore, the refractory period is, apparently, nonexistent, which is equally absurd.

“Hell,” he says, pushing Eliot away. “Get your pants on. I don’t know if they’ve got a Holiday Inn down here, but I’m pretty sure I saw an IKEA showroom we could ruin instead.”

Eventually, they’ll have to leave here. Not just the bowling alley, but really _leave_. Move on to whatever hellish torments or heavenly bliss awaited them, to an existence that might not guarantee each other.

But the Underworld is all about unfinished business, and they have plenty of it. Eternity can wait.

 

* * *

  


_Timeline 36_

 

Eliot hears sirens. He’s knows it’s not exactly an original thought, because who the fuck would think the opposite, but he fucking _hates_ the sound of sirens. There weren’t sirens on the farm or even the rural town beside the farm — just roosters and folks yelling at each other. There certainly weren’t sirens at his Ivy League undergraduate school, with the campus security turning blind eyes to his richer peers, and none at Brakebills either.

Danger never gave you a warning at Brakebills.

There are sirens in the city though, where they’re running through the cramped cobblestoned streets of Lower Manhattan. This area always makes Eliot feel slightly claustrophobic, and not just because of the hordes of Financial District yuppies in cheap suits crowding into the plethora of Irish pubs. The buildings stack on each other, towering overhead like a painted movie backdrop. Especially now, at dawn on an overcast day, where the gray-white sky reflects back on shining windows and steel and it all feels like a slab of concrete sliding over a tomb.

They turn widely onto Broad Street, and though the buildings aren’t as close together, now they’re dealing with tourists being herded by tiny flags and businessmen rushing to work and the occasional Secret Police blockade.

But they’re running fast enough that even the most oblivious New Yorker makes a path for them, or maybe that’s Eliot’s frantic telekinesis pushing people aside. Quentin is still behind him, he hears, but he can also hear the soldiers chasing them, one shouting, “Stop! You, stop!” like they carry any power other than bullets.

Eliot is a faster runner than Quentin, by nature of his longer legs, but every time he slows down to match pace with him, he gets a hand placed roughly on the middle of his back, pushing him forward.

**_There_**.

They turn sharply onto Beaver Street, jumping over a concrete barricade, and unfortunately, it’s deserted. The Secret Police soldiers weren’t likely to fire on them in a crowded street. Here is covered by construction scaffolding for work being done to the building beside them. Sometimes, Eliot forgets that the world is still turning for everyone else.

Footsteps echo here, and Eliot is running in front, but he can see out of the corner of his eye what’s happening behind him in the reflection of the windowed storefronts. He sees only one soldier gaining on them, the other two lagging.  He sees Quentin turn while running, which slows him down, but then Quentin does a sharp gesture — one, in fact, that Eliot taught him — and in a blink, the soldier’s head is facing the wrong way on his neck. Then Quentin’s hand is on him again, pushing him to go faster.

**_Right_ ** _._

They sprint onto a loading dock of an office supply company. It’s barely maneuverable, two large semi-trailers without their motors backed in with unloaded crates wedged between, ready to be brought inside. It’s dark and quiet except for their breathing. They snake and duck between boxes until they’re all the way inside, and Eliot scans the back wall between his fingers until he sees, near an interior door on the right, at the top of a low, concrete ramp — the sigils Julia had left for them. Portals take too long to prepare and open. They had to set them up in advance to be opened quickly, which is why they’re having to resort to this hide and seek bullshit.

**_Wait. They’re here._ **

Eliot turns to Quentin, who’s peeking out over a box, hand raised. He pauses a moment, watching something, before gesturing to Eliot to make for the portal.

He goes, rolling under the rail rather than running around to go up the ramp.

Quentin doesn’t follow.

Staying low by the sigils, which are invisible now, Eliot pulls out his case of tools from his jacket. Looking over his shoulder, he hisses, “What are you doing?”

Quentin is still watching the soldiers attempting to stumble quietly through the warehouse, but at the question, he turns to Eliot and smiles. Then he does some jazz hands in his direction.

Eliot wants so desperately to pull him away, to have him nearer, where it’s not really safer at all, but at least he’ll be closer. Instead, he mouths, “Be careful.”

Quentin rolls his eyes, and into Eliot’s head, he says, **_Yes, dad._ **

Eliot watches him disappear with a grimace. It had been a dream of his to one day be someone’s daddy, but never like this.

Fortunately, Quentin can only speak into Eliot’s mind, not read it, so he hadn’t heard that.

It would have been fairer, though, since Eliot is the reason Quentin can’t speak.

After all, he’d been the one to drag Q from Brakebills to hunt down that missing fucking book. The rumors of Homeland Security catching wise and being suspicious of magic had just been, at the time, rumors. Barely rumors. Magicians had still only been discussing whether or not they even _knew_ about magic. But the faculty had heightened security at Brakebills since Eliot had started there, and he’d known the book being out there was dangerous. It would have tried to seek its mate no matter what, which could have lead _anyone_ back to the school. He and Quentin had laughed at their own instilled paranoia. Half the country still didn’t believe vaccines worked. It was all a joke.

So they were caught completely off guard when a team of anti-magic Secret Police raided the bodega of hedge witches just as he and Quentin had been leaving.

The rumors of the government being suspicious of magic were, it turned out, false. They hadn’t just suspected magic existed, they had been preparing for war.

And Eliot had gotten away, that day. Quentin hadn’t.

Later, they learned Quentin and the hedge witches had been taken to some facility, along with some other captured witches and magicians, where the regular fucks weren’t experimenting with ways to neutralize magic. Some thought the power rested in their eyes, so they were blinded. Some thought, accidentally accurately, that it rested in their hands, and so they were removed, too.

Quentin had been lucky, all things considered. He’d been in the group testing whether magic lay in incantations and whispered latin, because the fuckers had read Harry Potter too goddamn much or something. They’d only removed his vocal chords.

Then whatever X-files, super secret section of Homeland Security decided to try _lobotomy_ , but fortunately, they’d been able to break Quentin out before all that. Apparently, though, they’d managed to go through with it on some poor bastard at another facility. The magician had been strong, and without their mind, all they had was power, unchecked.

The leveling of Baltimore had been, of course, blamed on the magicians. The secret was out, and the war was on.

There might have been spells to fix Quentin’s voice, but they were lost when the library, along with the rest of Brakebills, had burnt down. Besides, they’d all been on the run since then, no time to do any kind of healing of any sort, but then Alice had dug out this archaic hedge spell from somewhere — an invasive, dangerous link between two people. Quentin had vehemently denied wanting to do that to anyone, but Eliot had jumped to volunteer. He owed it to Q to help him speak again. It had meant enduring a week or two of next-level, tied-to-the-bed insanity as he had to deal with Quentin’s overwhelming trauma and depression and anxiety and terrible taste in music battling with his own trauma and depression and great taste in music. But eventually, Quentin learned to meditate, get his walls up, and get his thoughts under control.

He starts focusing on the portal. Quentin would be fine. He’d never had a chance to go to Brakebills South, but he probably would have learned soon enough that he was actually insanely good at wordless magic, especially now with the meditation.

Incidentally, he also does tai chi, when they’re hiding out, which is supposed to be good for his healing, his PTSD, and his mind control. It’s also incredibly pleasing for Eliot to watch.

They hadn’t been able to reach the two closest portal checkpoints they’d set up nearer to the hedge camp because of unforeseen blockades, but Margo and Julia together were a whirlwind of contingency plans. This one will be taking them to their third safe house in fucking Yonkers. Was there truly no end to the degradation?

They’d all fashioned themselves as some sort of superhero team, which is honestly embarrassing. They wear cloaks and leather pants now, all the girls have some sort of weird braid in their hair, and Quentin and Eliot have matching brands on the sides of their heads for the bond, which also means matching post-apocalyptic, half-shaved haircuts. It’s ridiculous.

Of all of them, Eliot suspects he’s the only superhero nerd of the group, not that he’d ever admit it. They all had their Fillory books, or Black Beauty if you’re Alice, but Eliot, sad and queer and alone, had read every comic book he could get his hands on as a kid. It’s where he first got his ideas of how he could _change_ — he didn’t need to wait for a superserum or a radioactive spider to come along. He could just decide to be more than he was, and eventually, become the costume he’d longed to wear.

So, secretly, he’s the superhero expert of the team, and he knows they aren’t heroes. They’re too fucked up to be heroes. Vigilantes, technically. Anti-heroes, probably. Definitely one of those edgier, late 90s comics where the villains win and kill everyone.  

Because while they aren’t directly responsible for the U.S. government coming to fuck them all in the ass, they are actually _incredibly_ responsible for the mystical, evil Beast that’s also tormenting the magical community.

But. They have a plan.

Well, Julia has the plan. Quentin had a lot of input. Alice had a lot of suggestions. Kady and Penny were there for a good reality check or two. He and Margo were mainly there to be beautiful, and provide the crew with liquor during their limited downtime. Margo was also there to even out everyone else’s blind optimism. Eliot was also there to help Quentin speak.

Julia’s plan is this: the Beast came from somewhere — the Beast came from Fillory. Which, even if Fillory makes monsters like the Beast, it has to be better than here. So Julia, Eliot privately thought, has decided she’s the Christ-like figure in this whole situation, intent to bring the magical community to salvation. They’d find a way to Fillory, plan a mass exodus of all — hedges and magicians alike, rescuing them from the camps and prisons the Secret Police are building daily, it feels like, and lock the door behind them, leaving the Beast here for Homeland Security to deal with.

That had been Quentin’s main input. Everyone else had seemed wary of leaving the regular, non-magic people to deal with the Beast’s rage. Quentin, eyes dark, arms folded, had put his foot down. They want to fight magic? Let them choke on it.

Actually, Quentin’s exact words had been a lot more rage-filled and expletive-heavy, but Eliot had toned it down.

He hears something fall somewhere behind him, but he forces himself to keep working. He cuts open his palm to complete the sigils, still hidden on the wall. Blood isn’t necessary for the spell, but it’s easier than having to carry around spray paint or a marker or something.

Actually, he had been doing that, but he kept losing them.

“Freeze!”

Eliot freezes, just as the sigils begin to glow beneath his finger. All he needs is a little chant, a little finger wiggling, Quentin at his side, and they’d be gone.

Slowly, he pivots on his heels.

Two soldiers are at the end of the ramp, guns trained on him. As he watches, Quentin steps out from the shadows, like a ghost, standing between the soldiers and Eliot.

The soldiers, to their credit, don’t jump very high. Both train their guns on Q instead.

“Hands up!” says one. “Don’t move.”

Calmly, Quentin obeys, his palms out just above his head. Then, one of the soldiers trains his gun on Eliot again.

Eliot can’t help it. He smiles.

Suddenly, but almost lazily, Quentin drops one wrist, raising his thumb and cocking two fingers at the soldier aiming for Eliot. He jerks his hand back, and into Eliot’s mind, he says, **_Bang!_ **

The soldier drops like he’s been hit by a sniper. Before the other one can even react, Quentin does the same with his other hand, and out goes the other soldier with another **_Bang!_ **

No, not out. They’re still conscious, writhing around in agony on the floor. Eliot knows they’re feeling it _everywhere,_ in too much pain to even speak or scream. He lets them for a moment before he cuts them both off with a sharp gesture of his own with a bloodied hand.

Quentin strolls over to him, looking smug. He’s still got his finger guns.

“For Christ’s sake,” says Eliot, “don’t blow on them like they’re smoking barrels. I have some respect for you, y’know.”

Now, Quentin’s smile looks less smug, and more delighted. His floppy hair hangs out of his eyes and over the shaved side, the brand barely visible above his ear. The scar on his throat, however, he always make sure is seen. He bends down until he’s eye level with Eliot, and holds one finger gun up to Eliot’s lips.

Eliot rolls his eyes, but only a little. He holds Quentin’s hand still, forgetting for a moment that it’s covered in blood, and blows softly on his fingers.

“You supernerd,” he says, and Quentin grins.

They stand, and Eliot completes the ritual. In a glowing hole in the wall is Yonkers, which is almost as depressing as this warehouse. He thinks it’s a little shack next to the AmTrak station. Eliot is depressed just thinking about it.

**_Wait._ ** Quentin stops him with a hand on his shoulder. **_We have to do the thing._**

Eliot sighs. “Really? It’ll be like a second.”

Quentin sidles up closer to him, one side of his lips raised, and waits.

Months ago, after they got Quentin back, before they’d done the ritual, an ambush had sent them all scrambling in different directions. This was also before they’d figured out these meticulous escape routes. Quentin had followed Julia, Eliot with Margo, but before they could split to meet up later, Quentin had grabbed him and kissed him deeply, passionately, until Eliot felt it everywhere and had completely forgotten what was happening around them until Margo had pulled him away by the scruff of his neck. It had come out of nowhere. Quentin still had that hunted, pale look about him after escaping the facility, but he’d told Eliot later that the world was too chaotic and unpredictable and terrible to know what would happen to them all tomorrow, so he wanted to make sure they’d had one epic goodbye kiss to remember each other by, just in case. Because Quentin was, is, and will always be a hideous, hopeless, fantastic romantic.

Eliot still has the paper Quentin wrote that explanation on, though, but no one needed to know that.

Since then, they’ve been fooling around some, whenever they had the chance, which wasn’t often. It’s the only light in their lives right now, the only brief bit of joy and ease they have. Despite everything, in those moments, Eliot has never been happier.

And though they’re rarely separated anymore, since Quentin needs Eliot to speak, on occasion the situation does arise, and Quentin will insist on the tradition. Just in case.

It’s never light, in these moments.

Quentin cocks an eyebrow, still waiting. The portal won’t stay open forever, and the hedge camp breakout had been _big_. They certainly weren’t out of danger because a couple of soldiers went down. And it’ll be a _literal_ second that one would be in Yonkers and the other Manhattan.

Quentin waits.

Eliot grabs him by the neck with his bloody hands and kisses him. He even goes so far as to dip him a little, since the bastard wants epic romance.

But Quentin just clings to him and kisses him eagerly back. His hands — which now have to do so much violence — are gently cupping Eliot’s face as he arches into the kiss. He can’t speak anymore, but he tells Eliot all the things he longs to hear with his tongue in Eliot’s mouth. He tells him what he wants from Eliot, what he craves. What their future will be, that they’ll even have one. A future where his hands only do soft things. A future where Quentin can make his own moans again, without drawing them out of Eliot for them to share.

Eliot pulls back, resting their foreheads together while they catch their breaths. They’re had been more than three soldiers chasing them from the start. The portal would only be open for a few more moments. They definitely aren’t the heroes Eliot used to read about, because those guys always know how to behave unselfishly, and that is one lesson Eliot refused to learn.

Anti-heroes, then. Vigilantes. They did the right thing only sometimes, but enough.

Like kissing a boy when he asks. And then shoving him through a closing portal first to safety.

“That’s for all the pushing before,” Eliot says into Yonkers before following him inside.

 

* * *

 

_Timeline 40 (and a half)_

 

Quentin wakes up to the sound of rain falling on the roof. It’s thatched with straw, wood, and magic, so the rain sounds like pebbles falling through leaves. He keeps his eyes closed, listening to it. Even in the darkest moments of his life, he was soothed by being in bed in a rainstorm, dry and wrapped in warmth, free to dream. He listens to the rain, feeling the bed beneath his back, the pillow under his cheek, and the peculiar numb pressure on his shoulder.

He opens his eyes, squinting down at Eliot. “Seriously? Is this going to be an everyday thing?”

“Possibly.” Eliot doesn’t stop nuzzling Quentin’s wooden shoulder. He sighs deeply, his breath brushing on Quentin’s side that’s still skin, making him twitch. “You smell like a forest, but also so manly. This is what I always pictured cuddling with the Brawny Man to be like.”

"The Brawny Man?”

“My sexual awakening took place on a farm in Indiana,” Eliot murmurs, nosing Quentin’s armpit. “All I had to work with was the Brawny Man, mom’s favorite local weatherman, and a particularly buff scarecrow.”

About six months into the quest for the key, the flesh-paint on Quentin’s shoulder had started to wear off. The nurse at the centaur hospital had said it would be temporary, but had showed him how to make his own, if he felt he needed it. The only problem was, the potion required a specific type of rare berry that didn’t like to grow naturally many places. When he’d returned to Whitespire, depressed and already a little drunk, he’d found some already planted and growing in the royal gardens, although he never asked who planted them.

The berries don’t grow near here, and of course they couldn’t leave to forage for them. Quentin isn’t particularly vain — that’s never exactly been one of his issue — but it had taken him awhile to get used to seeing the warm wood seamlessly growing into his body the way it would the ground. He tries to keep it covered, not wanting to make a big deal out of it, but there’s little privacy between them, here.

Except when Eliot had finally saw it, he’d frozen, staring at it while Quentin hastily put on a shirt, but said nothing about it.

Now, a week after their one-year anniversary on this quest, he knows why Eliot was staring.

“I’m going to _splinter_ , “ he whines, trying to roll away, but he’s pinned under Eliot’s arm. “And one’s going to get stuck in your lip and you’ll be such a bitch about it.”

Eliot stops nuzzling to climb up on top of him. Despite — well, everything about Eliot, he’s a morning person. When he’s not hungover, he’s bright-eyed and energetic in the earliest hours. Quentin knows it’s the farm boy in him, but he doesn’t mention it.

“You can just suck the splinter out,” Eliot says, bending low, bringing their chests flush. He stays just out of reach, though, making Quentin lean up to kiss him.

It’s slow, soft — an early morning on a rainy day kiss, when the sun is barely risen and probably won’t for the rest of the day, and everything is bathed in a pale, non-light. Quentin’s feet are cold from being out of the covers all night. Eliot’s back is sweaty from being wrapped around all of them. He can’t get his fingers through Quentin’s hair without encountering a knot.

They stay that way for a long time.

Eventually, Quentin’s stomach starts growling, so they move away from each other, with every intention of getting up and going about their day. Eliot even gets as far as sitting all the way up. But then he just crosses his legs on his own pillow, still under the blanket, and looks out the window. Without breaking his gaze, he starts gently untangling Quentin’s hair.

“What do you think happens to the quest if we take a day off?” he asks, watching the rain. It’s not a light drizzle, but an actual shower. “Will it start all over again?”

Quentin shrugs. He doesn’t think it matters. They just keep trying it until they get it right. There’s no start to it, just an end.

“We only had a few more tiles on the last design,” he says instead. “We’ll put them down quickly, and if it’s the wrong one, we’ll call it a day.”

Eliot snorts. “ _If._ ”

Quentin playfully snaps at his hand, which makes Eliot look away from the window.

“I didn’t say we had to go out this _second_ ,” he says, grabbing Eliot by the wrist and pulling him back on top of him.

By the time they get out of bed, Quentin is both an unusual combination of starving and satiated.

Some kind of daylight has lit up their tiny hut, but they get a fire going anyway. Breakfast is bread and peach jam and a bitter drink which is nothing like coffee but has the same effect. Then they head outside.

Neither of them are Nature students, so they don’t know how to stop the rain entirely. They wouldn’t want to, even if they could. Everything glistens in the rain, the wind rustling through the trees like a prayer or a spell, muttered under a breath. It chills Quentin despite his coat. It smells so green outside. Nothing is more alive than when it’s in the rain.

They can’t stop it, but there’s no reason for them to get wet. Eliot holds a barrier over the puzzle while Quentin consults his notebook. Silently, he moves the last hundred or so tiles into place. To Quentin, this design looks like that moment just before the sun finally sets on a horizon. The dark ground not yet meeting a dark sky, but momentarily split by a piercing band of bright light.

He tries to make metaphors of each mathematically generated design in his head, hoping one of them might mean “the beauty of all life.” But he’s not exactly a poet, so he doesn’t think it’s working.

He places the final tile, nothing happens, and Eliot, hands still raised to keep them safe and dry, says, “Lunch?”

By the time Quentin finishes recording their latest failure, Eliot has some stew started on the fire. He also has a bunch of cleaning supplies dancing around the hut like they’re in _Fantasia_.

It had taken Quentin a year and two days to realize just how much Eliot thrives in domesticity, but in his defense, it had seemed so unlikely before. It had taken him a year and a week to realize maybe he does, too, as he pulls Eliot away from the fire and pushes him onto their slouching couch. He runs his hand through Eliot’s hair and says, “I’ll finish it.”

It’s self-preservation as well as wanting to help. Eliot likes his food as salty as he likes Margo. It would be nice if they didn’t die of heart disease before they finished this stupid fucking quest.

He stirs the stew, feeling the potatoes start to soften, and asks, “Are you going to read?”

Eliot, to Quentin’s confusion, has suddenly become an avid reader. But it’s probably because the only books in the hut are a 100-book fantasy series of the trashiest kind. They had been covered by a layer of dust when they first arrived. Evidently, someone had thought at one point they might contain “the beauty of all life.”

What they actually contained was the Fillorian version of “fantasy” which is set in what is possibly a Starbucks. Eliot is on book 46 of the epic romance between Ash-lii, a Barreesta from the Port Lands and her aggressive but misunderstood Don Manajeer, a Cawfee Master, who is sort of like Snape from Harry Potter, but younger and for some reason wears leather pants to work.

“‘ _He laid me down in the fallen cawfee beans in the Storee Room, his passion so enormous, not even the lines of consumers waiting outside could drag him from my arms,_ ’” Eliot reads. “‘ _Tearing at my emerald apron, he cried, ‘This is the last time you taunt me with the way you wipe down the Wand of Steam, Ash-lii. You stroke it just as you_ know _it arouses me.’ ‘Nay,’ I cried —_  okay, why is everyone always crying in this? — ‘ _Nay,’ I cried, clinging to his jet black, more brooding apron, which hung perfectly from his chiseled form. ‘I just_ yearn _for you and the way you make me foam —_  oh, Jesus Christ.”

Quentin puts the cover on the top to let the stew simmer for awhile. He never liked cooking before, but for the first time since he started at Brakebills, he’s had to do it himself by _magic_ , and that makes it infinitely more interesting to do.

He sits down opposite of Eliot, cross-legged on the floor with his back to the fire. It’s a little stifling in the hut, but without Quentin saying anything, Eliot flicks a finger and a window opens a crack, letting in a chilled breeze and the smattering of rain.

With Eliot still reading in one ear, he brings his boots into his lap. He cracks his neck, relaxes his shoulders, and slowly starts to undo the laces with his mind

A month after starting the quest, Eliot mentioned some magical principle that Quentin had never heard of, and Eliot had staggered under the realization that Quentin is, basically, a moron. He’d had — what? A combined five months of schooling before everything went to even more Hell than previously thought possible? Quentin didn’t even know his discipline.

Eliot, with all the wisdom of a slightly older child on a playground, took it upon himself to teach Quentin everything he should have learned, had Brakebills remained a relatively useful institution. Eliot doesn’t like to read, which means he’s actually an excellent teacher, when books are removed from the equation.

But all he really knows is Physical magic, so that’s what Quentin is learning. Eliot is surprisingly patient, and rarely doles out praise — but not in a particularly mean way. He just looks at Quentin when he does something right and kind of nods, as if to say, “Great, but can you do it _faster?_ ” And Quentin, former gifted kid, former AP whiz kid, was _determined_ to do it faster.

He’s trying to learn telekinesis now, Eliot’s discipline. Brakebills South had taught him magic with words — this was magic without _hands,_ which is basically impossible unless one had a natural affinity for it. Or unless one had a ridiculous amount of time doing nothing but trying to solve a puzzle.

They were working on smaller things, which is actually harder. Eliot had said, without a trace of irony or remorse, it wasn’t difficult to swerve a bus into a bully. It’s way more difficult to undo the driver’s seatbelt.

But they don’t have seatbelts, so shoelaces will have to do. Quentin manages to only untie one knot by the time their lunch is done, and after Eliot gets up to hand him a bowl, he inhales it without looking up from the shoe. Nothing happens while he’s eating, of course, because even though he’s trying to, his focus isn’t completely there.

Eliot stops reading to eat, but once they’re done, he doesn’t pick it up again. He lies on the couch and watches Quentin slowly, slowly, _slowly_ stare at the single boot until he unthreads the laces and lets them coil in a pile by the floor.

“Not bad,” Eliot says mildly.

Quentin looks up, preparing to complain about a headache, but then he sees Eliot, and the complaint dies away with the pain. Eliot is just miles of leg, his ankles crossed and feet hanging over the side. His hair is ruffled and curled with the humidity in the air, his face a little flushed with the heat in the hut and the spice of their lunch. He’s still in his old buttoned-up vest, but now he’s wearing a pair of Fillory trousers, soft and worn, which hang loose on his hips and leave little to the imagination in certain areas. He’s watching Quentin with pleased eyes, waiting for him to get onto the next boot.

_Let’s just save the overthinking for the puzzle, yeah?_ Eliot had said a week ago, and they’d done just that. From sunrise to sunset, they worked on the mosaic, and only waited for dark, for after dinner, for exhaustion to settle in before they crawled into bed together. It never went beyond that, because they had work to do and no time to lose and daylight makes you think, while the night is only for touching and feeling and wanting in a glowing dark. Unspoken lines they’d drawn, because speaking requires thought and they’re not supposed to do that.

But Quentin _isn’t_ thinking when he rises, when he makes his way over to Eliot and sits down on his lap.

Eliot’s brow furrows, and his mouth parts to speak, but without saying a word or moving his hands, Quentin undoes the top button of Eliot’s shirt.

Eliot smiles like he’s been slapped with it — a wide-eyed, delighted thing. Finding a way to combine magic and seduction is his _raison d’etre._ No doubt he’s imagining this as his Mr. Miyagi moment.

It’s both easier and harder to do than the laces. Of course, he’s not able to focus nearly as much. It’s impossible, with the heat of Eliot’s thighs between his legs, Eliot’s hands on his knees to steady him, his own hands on top of Eliot’s to steady himself and not give into the temptation to _use_ them, for magic _or_ seduction. It’s impossible, with the way Eliot’s smug half-grin slips from his face, the way the flush rises on his cheeks, the way his pulse flutters at being so _watched_ , at being the sole focus of Quentin’s hard, determined gaze. It’s impossible, with the way Eliot starts to squirm a little under the attention, restless, breathing hard, gripping Quentin’s legs tightly to stop himself from ripping all his buttons off himself.

It’s harder, but it’s also easier. Magic is all about intention. Before, he’d wanted the laces undone because he wanted to be successful at it, because he wanted to accomplish something. But this. He doesn’t just want Eliot unbuttoned, he _needs_ it too. With every button that finally goes, with every square inch of skin that gets exposed — Quentin’s need grows.

And so does Eliot’s. It’s easier and harder than the laces.

But he gets them done, all five of them, eventually. He sits back on Eliot’s lap, breathing hard, pushing the hair out of his face. Waiting for Eliot to say something. To call him a horndog and push him off his lap. To calmly tell him this isn’t what they agreed on, even though if Quentin had known he was agreeing to not touching Eliot whenever the sun shone, he wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. To joke and make it another lesson: the real test would be if he could use telekinesis to button him up again.

It’s a test he’d gladly fail.

The vest is still on him, and he has a shirt on underneath, the only skin visible just his breastbone and collar. Yet Eliot looks so _exposed_ this way, shiny with sweat, bottom lip pink and bitten. He looks undone.

Quentin’s waiting for him to speak, so of course, Eliot doesn’t. Instead, he surges upward, clinging to Quentin’s back, and kisses him thoroughly, almost angrily. In the nighttime, Eliot is gentle with him, eager and sweet, taking his time. In the day, Eliot is himself — all bite, aggressively playful, desperate to provoke. He forces Quentin’s mouth wider, tugging on his hair.

And then Quentin jerks up with a shocked gasp, the specific sensation of fast magic working over him. Suddenly, he’s completely naked — they both are, his fingers now digging into Eliot’s bare shoulders.

He glances over to see their clothes, folded semi-neatly by the fire.

“You’re such a fucking show-off, El,” he groans, pulling Eliot back to his mouth and kissing off his stupid shit-eating grin.

Eliot keeps him close, nails piercing skin and wood. Quentin can hear the beating of his heart and it sounds like the pounding of rain against magic and the crackle of a fire in a hearth. He hears his heart in his mouth when he breaks away from Eliot’s kiss and says, “El, fuck me.”

Eliot shudders under him, and he’s pressed to him so tightly it feels like Quentin is shaking, too. He pulls one of Quentin’s hands off his own neck and brings it between their faces, lips brushing Quentin’s fingers from both sides.

He then kisses Quentin’s fingertips and says, “Like I showed you.”

Quentin closes his eyes. Magic and sex together comes naturally to Eliot, no pun intended. Quentin struggles to remember his own fucking name when he’s lucky enough to get any. It takes him a moment to recall how to slide his thumb against his middle finger, what Greek phrase to mutter, but he does and magic is about _intention_ , so suddenly his hand is covered with oil, slick and dripping like his own cock.

Eliot kisses his nose. “Good boy.” Then he guides Quentin’s hand down to his asshole and helps him finger himself open.

Quentin bucks on his own hand, on Eliot’s, on his lap, mouth wide with lost breaths as he gets used to the stretch. He’s hardly new at this, of course — even if his high school career hadn’t left him with a ridiculous amount of free time for experimentation, this last week has been a study in learning how to open up to Eliot in every sense of the word.

Still, this feels different. He’s almost more aware of Eliot’s hand around his wrist, helping to guide his pace, his fingers tapping against Quentin’s own to let him know he’s ready for another one.

Eliot helps Quentin fuck himself with his own fingers until he is a writhing mess on his lap, cock smearing pre-cum between their stomachs. He burrows his face into Eliot’s neck, cursing himself for putting meaning into seeing Eliot outside of candlelight. He’d wanted to see Eliot, fine, but now Eliot can see all of him. Can see him red and whimpering inches from his own face. It’s too much.

But then Eliot slowly pulls Quentin’s fingers out of him, and then he takes Quentin’s face in both hands. He brushes all his hair back, forcing Quentin to look him in the eye. He can barely do it, he feels so good.

Eliot looks wild — but insanely focused. He never gets lost in arousal. He’s in his element here. He removes a hand from Quentin’s face to line his cock up, Quentin automatically reaching to help.

“Don’t think you can do this,” Eliot murmurs, pulling Quentin closer by the hair as he starts to slide in, “every time you want to get out of doing homework.” The last word is cut off by a harsh, punched-out groan as he bottoms out into Quentin.

Quentin swallows the groan and then Eliot’s tongue, his knees digging into Eliot’s side so tightly his thighs burn like he’s been running for hours. He waits for Eliot to stop clenching his hair so hard before his says, voice shaky, “Yes I can.”

The position is awkward, keeping them at a slow, sharp pace. Quentin fucks himself down on Eliot’s dick, his own body weight adding an unbelievable pressure, making him feel more full than ever. He can barely breathe let alone kiss, his head thrown back to moan each time Eliot thrusts up. The sound of their bodies meeting is ridiculous and loud, almost as loud as the sound of Eliot kissing and biting all along Quentin’s neck and shoulder.

Almost as loud as Eliot in Quentin’s ear, whispering, “Touch yourself.” Then he thrusts up and adds in a rush, “ _Don’t_ use telekinesis, though. Sixteen-year old me learned that the hard way. Well over four hours and consult a physician hard way.”

Quentin laughs, and he sounds completely unhinged, but it’s fine because he listens to Eliot and grabs himself and the laugh turns into a moan like a candlewick suddenly becoming a flame. He still sounds deranged, but Eliot kisses behind his ear and murmurs, “Good,” again and Quentin has spent so much of his life trying to be perfectly sane. If madness is this, why ever try for anything else again?

It’s slow, sharp. There’s no rush. They’re only waiting on the rain.

Quentin just holds his cock, using Eliot’s thrusts and his own weak bounces to fuck up into his hand. It’s still slick with magic oil and it’s perfect, it’s all perfect, especially when he comes with a shout all over the both of them. Here in Fillory with Eliot is the first time in his life he hasn’t worried about keeping his voice down. He’d never even realized it was a thing he worried about, until he didn’t have to anymore.

Eliot holds him in place with arms wrapped around his back while he keeps fucking him. Quentin is too spent to do anything but arch into their slick stomachs and breathe heavily into Eliot’s ear in that way that makes him shiver, without fail.

“ _Fuck,_ Q,” Eliot pants, finally sounds like he’s losing control. He noses at Quentin’s neck, his fucking becoming more frantic. Quentin squeezes down on his cock every time he thrusts up until he finally buries himself deep inside him and comes with a muffled, “ _Q._ ”

Then there’s just their panting and the wind, both strong enough to move trees, to make their house creak, to bring the rain in from the windows, to stroke the fire. They’re clinging to each other, but it’s basically a hug, which Quentin likes. Pale, rustling light swims over the small bumps in Eliot’s spine, the shadows of his shoulder blades as dark as any night.

“Um,” says Eliot. “Don’t be mad.”

Quentin, who is tracing lines into Eliot’s back, stills.

Eliot is still inside him. His breathing isn’t back to normal yet. Quentin leans back. Eliot is pink and looking elsewhere.

“It’s just,” Eliot starts. “I think. Okay. I think there miiiiiight be. Teeth marks. In your shoulder.”

Quentin blinks for a second before looking down. In the warm wood of his left shoulder is a perfect indentation of Eliot’s relatively large bite radius, right down to the slightly crooked bottom teeth. It’s hardly the first time Eliot’s bitten him, but it’s the first time he’s done it in a place that doesn’t just bruise and then _disappear._

“What the _fuck._ ”

“We can sand it,” Eliot says brightly, like he knows what the fuck he’s talking about. “Add a little varnish, some lemon Pledge, no one will know the diff — _ow._ ” He stops, wounded, because Quentin just pinched his nipple, but that isn’t permanent so he doesn’t feel guilty about it.

“You’re so fucking weird, El.”

“You should talk, Pinocchio.”

Eliot’s smiling, and it’s the smile he’s been giving Quentin almost since the day they met. He doesn’t hide his feelings well, and all Quentin can see is fondness. Matched with the hands stroking his side, it’s almost too much for him to handle. So he shoves until Eliot is lying back on the couch, with himself on top.

He rests his head on Eliot’s chest. They’re going to have to stand out in the rain to get clean later. But it doesn’t look like it’ll stop anytime soon. From his vantage point, he can see the rain as it falls from the window. Eliot shifts as much as he can without dislodging Quentin so he can grab the blanket that sits on the back of the couch and drape it over them.

“To remove our clothes,” Quentin asks idly, “did you have to rip them?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Eliot’s playing with his hair again. “They’re totally in tatters. I hope you’re good at mending clothes, because I’m not, and usually when I’ve had to do that, I was a lot closer to an actual wardrobe and two-day Amazon shipping.”

Quentin smiles, digging his chin into Eliot’s pectoral. He’s pretty decent at mending things, but they don’t need clothes right now anyway. It’s still raining, they’re dry and safe, and they have nowhere else to go for awhile yet.

 


End file.
